On a new method
by MThisbe
Summary: Set in the early history of Valdemar before the reign of Elspeth the Peacemaker. Declan, a Healer on the frontier of the new kingdom, cannot understand why his Gift sometimes fails him at the worst possible time. In honor of DE Salmon and Louis Pasteur.


Declan kicked a rock. He didn't kick it very hard, and it didn't move; his toes hurt and his frustration diminished, but otherwise there was no effect. Nonetheless, the nidus of pain and slight damage inside his boot changed his focus away from his own bad mood. He sat down and entered a light trance, sending himself _down_ and _in _to find the broken nail and the damaged tissue of the nailbed and to subtly direct with delicate signals the processes of his own flesh, encouraging them to return to health in an intelligent and organized way.

When he had finished, he turned and started back through the woods, heading towards the keep, the midday meal, and his most recent failure.

"It just doesn't make _sense!_" he said aloud, his frustration began to build again. He centered his mind on the faint green glow of Healing energy he had just accessed, trying to maintain the equanimity gained from the successful use of his Gift.

_Why_ in the name of all the gods should he have this Gift - the Gift of Healing so desperately needed on the frontiers of Valdemar - and be unable to _use_ it when he most needed to?

Oh, it was all right when he had stubbed a toe and just need to direct blood flow more beneficially and ease pain. He'd never had any trouble with that; it was only the terrible situation like the fieldworker this morning when his talent failed him.

He sighed and his steps slowed, remembering again the terror of it: poor Elia a mess of blood with her guts poking out the hole an ill-swung scythe had made in her side. Himself, able to stop the bleeding with his Gift and able to help her with the pain; trying to knit the edges of the wound, encouraging her body to fight the contamination from a punctured loop of bowel, hands on either side of the wound, _pushing_ with all the might his Gift could bring to bear. And failing.

In the end, he'd had to stitch the rent flesh with a needle and thread, praying that his efforts at fighting infection had been enough. At least he had been able to spare her the pain; he knew with a sickness deep inside that his efforts wouldn't save her babe.

Lord Rune had sent a rider back to Haven asking for a master Healer to come by Runefork as soon as it might be possible. Elia couldn't be moved to the House of Healing soon enough to make a difference, not by any stretch of the imagination. She would bide in the infirmary at Runekeep, and if Declan's prayers were answered and his skill at poultice and infusion were enough to augment the little he could accomplish with his Gift, she would survive until another Healer came.

He rounded a bend in the track and emerged from beneath the pale-green canopy of newly-opened leaves. Tumbled earth, smelling fecund, lay in long rows where it had been thrown by the spring plowing just completed. Careful to step in between the rows, Declan made his way across the fields towards the Keep. On his way he passed more fields newly plowed, others with overwintered sweet pea and rye still standing tall and dry, and others yet planted in perennial beds. It was in one of these that Elia had had her misfortune, a slip of the foot and a mistimed swing as she scythed down weeds around a valuable grove of fruit-bearing trees throwing her off-balance, her fall broken terribly by the scythe itself. Declan detoured, leaving a wide berth around that particular grove and making for the narrow footbridge over the merrily rushing Kallarune River.

A quick cut around the side of the Keep, a duck through the least-used postern gate with a nod to the bored guard, and a convoluted but entirely unobserved traverse through servants' hallways and back stairs, and Declan was at the back door to the infirmary without any awkward encounters. He sighed, and rubbed his hand across his face before opening the door.

Elia was still sleeping, gods be thanked. Her color was pale and her brow damp, but there didn't seem to be any further bleeding or any putrefaction of the wound. The fieldworker who'd been sitting (thoroughly scrubbed and in a clean gown) next to her to tend her needs if she should wake looked up at Declan's entry, back down at his hands when he saw who it was. _Restwick, that's his name_, thought Declan to himself; _father of the babe dying inside, the poor sod_. Her condition hadn't changed since he'd left an hour ago mumbling about needing fresh air and open sky, so he continued through to the more public receiving room.

The household servants he'd set to the task looked to have done an adequate job of clearing up the room. The bloodstains had been sluiced away from the smooth stone floor, the table cleaned, and his small table restocked with immediate necessities: clean gauze, a bottle of distilled spirits, knives and scissors of various descriptions, and a length of gut for suture soaking in a covered bowl, needle already attached. Just in case.

_Well, that's all right then_. At least he wouldn't have to spend half an hour scrubbing dried blood and mud from his surfaces. Instead, he sank to a seated position on the cushion tucked into a corner for exactly that purpose, and began the ritual of entering a proper, full trance. _Down_, and _in_, finding himself fully, anchoring himself to the earth beneath the keep, and then _out_. When he had done, he took a breath to ready himself and then opened his eyes, looking at the infirmary with his full Gift.

Everywhere, he saw the glow of life. Through the closed doorway into the infirmary he could see the strength and worry of Restwick, protectively stolid next to the pained and unconscious pulsation that marked Elia's injury and shock. The bright, curious life of a mouse adventuring in the wall caught his attention, and he gently shaped its mind to avoid his clean, bright rooms. Turning his focus from these, he set himself a more delicate task. With patience, and by ignoring the near-overwhelming brightness of the larger lives, he could See a fine, faint dusting of life-energy through and around both rooms. These tiny lives were too small and too many for him to know and understand each one; he had tried once, years past, and nearly gone mad with the complexity of the effort. Instead, he used his Healing Gift upon all of them at once - on the tabletops and on the floor, on his instruments and in his supply of gauze and linen bandages. He used his Gift the way he would use it on any larger life: to make the creature function stronger, better, faster, to live as completely as it could. Until these tiny lives outstripped their own capacity for life, and burned themselves out.

Declan watched the faint dusting of life overlying everything die away, feeling his usual conflict of satisfaction and sorrow. He knew that some of these animalcules could cause terrible illness, catarrh of the lungs and putrefaction of wounds; he had recognized them in his patients. Nonethesless it was in some sense a perversion of his Gift to use it thus, and most of the tiny beasts were innocent of wrongdoing. He had tried using distilled spirits of wine to clean all the surfaces and his own hands. The effect was the same, his feelings the same, and Lady Rune grumbled about the diversion of her production of wine. So he had returned to using his Gift, as it tired him little and avoided trouble with his aunt.

His task complete for the moment, he closed his eyes and returned to himself with a small shake before opening them again into the everyday world. He had wasted enough of his day already, and there was always more work to do than could ever really be done.


End file.
